If you’re really interested in how life and society have evolved over time in the city, you just might want to visit museums dedicated to recording its everyday life and the “good old days”. There are the postal service, public security and Chinese medicine museums, to name just a few.
Shanghai Museum of TCM

The Shanghai Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine is on the new campus of Shanghai TCM University, in the Pudong New Area’s Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park. It has three parts: a Medical History section for Shanghai TCM University and the Chinese Medical Association, a Chinese Herbal Medicine room, and a History Museum. It was founded in July 1938 and is China’s earliest and largest TCM history museum and covers TCM all the way back to the Stone Age to provide insights into its history and achievements.

It is also a major educational site for national and municipal science popularization, so, it plays an important role in understanding and promoting TCM and international medical exchanges. The herbal medicine collection, founded in 1958, covers more than 3,000 types of Chinese herbal medicines and preparations to illustrate the form and function of Chinese herbal medicines. The University History exhibits, established in 2004, include more than 700 photos and objects and show the development of Shanghai TCM University since its founding back to 1958.

This museum is on the first floor of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and has a 10,000-sq-m exhibition area that uses a “real objects in their surrounding” approach to displays, supplemented with high-tech methods that combine relics, stage props, models, sound and light all in one.

It has seven parts: Huating (ancient Shanghai ) Origins; Urban Features; Glimpses of the Port; 10-mile Street of Foreign Flavor; Traces on the Sea; Architectural Exhibition; and Chariots and Horses. These all help to give visitors a sense of the folk customs and habits of old Shanghai.

Address: No 1 Century Avenue, Pudong district
Tel: +86-21-5879-1888
Getting there: Take Metro Line 2 to Lujiazui Station

Shanghai Postal Museum

Shanghai Postal Museum, the first postal museum in China, is in Shanghai post building, which opened to the public on Jan 1, 2006, after refurbishing. It covers an 8,000-sq–m space and contains a horse-drawn carriage used in 1909 and a truck from 1917, and other relics of postal service developments and changes. It also has a hall with many types of rare stamps and stamps of various designs.

The China Dairy Association and China Dairy Cattle Association came up with the idea of a China Dairy Museum back in 2000 and opened it in November 2001, with backing from the Bright Diary & Food Co. It has three major exhibit areas on a 1,000-sq–m space that show the development of the dairy business in China through various historical periods.

It was also a key municipal museum project and later added another 300 square meters to the original area. It is meant to play a role in explaining China’s dairy industry and its technology, concepts, and new dairy products.

This Public Security Museum is China’s first and contains nine exhibition halls containing around 3,000 items from the late Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911) to the present day. The history hall has 1,000 items to show the development of Shanghai’s Public Security since its establishment in 1854. It also has prison exhibits, fire control exhibits, and various equipment exhibits.

This museum, built in 2004, has a 2,000-sq-m floor space containing instruments and equipment related to astronomy, as well as time, science and technology, and astronomical exchanges halls and a meridian instrument room.

Address: At the top of Sheshan Hill
Tel: +86-21-6469-6271
Open time: 8:15 - 16:30
Getting there: Take the Shang-She Bus

Shanghai Naval Museum

This museum contains four exhibition halls with the following: naval history, with more than 5,000 pictures and 1,500 objects to depict the history and evolution of China's coastal defense and the People’s Navy, and its modern history; naval equipment, with more than 1,000 pictures and 500 weapons and ship and plane models, a ship and plane showroom, and a shooting range for light arms; and marine education, with a description of the mysteries and beauty of the sea, magnificent marine objects, and more than 1,000 paintings, sculptures, porcelain, and wax prints and 1,000 pictures related to marine culture. These items will impress visitors and give a sense of the nation’s territorial waters, and marine economy and culture.